Caro Meets Theatre Interview

Rachel Blackman: Moon Project

By TW Editorial | Published on Monday 4 November 2013

Rachel Blackman is an award winning theatre practitioner, known for such pieces as ‘Triptych: Three Attempts at Love’, which premiered to no small amount of critical acclaim at the Brighton Festival back in 2011.

When we heard that her company Stillpoint was headed to Ovalhouse this month with cracking new work ‘Moon Project’, we jumped at the opportunity to send a few questions her way, to find out more about the show, the company… oh, and that appearance in ‘Matrix Revolutions’.

TW: What is Moon Project about? What are its central themes?
RB: Moon Project is about two people whose lives collide in a cataclysmic way and who are changed irreconcilably by it. It is also about how through the wreckage, they discover a lasting bond. It is a parable about how challenging it is to be present following radical shifts in perspective, whether that is physical, philosophical, cultural, or interstellar!

TW: What was the inspiration for this piece?
RB: I saw a documentary by David Singleton called ‘In The Shadow of the Moon’ a few years back. It interviews the Apollo mission astronauts, at extreme close up, about their experiences, and I became fascinated with how they coped following the experience. As it was, they were the first people on the planet to experience any such thing and many of them didn’t cope very well. It made me think about how we deal with extreme experiences generally – or simply experiences that put us outside of the realm of what we know and understand. That became the territory of the play.

TW: The show was ‘written and conceived’ by you, but ‘created and devised’ by the company. Can you explain the process of bringing it all together?
RB: Yes, the process has been chaotic, organic and unfurling! Devising is tricky, but we have an awesome team who are all highly skilled, brilliant people who love their work. I work very collaboratively. Even the solo work is highly collaborative, created by a team. But the writing is done mostly alone: at home, at a desk, in cafes, in the dark in a theatre. It is kind of lonely, that part.

What I came to the team with initially was a core theme, two characters, an early story spine and a tonne of research around the core idea – imagery and ideas and some bits of writing. The research led into neuroscience, shock (and PTSD), near death experience, philosophy of consciousness, peak and psychedelic experience etc. Led me into the work of Peter Levine, Abraham Mazlow, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Thomas Metzinger and of course all the delicious space stuff. It was an unwieldy mass of stuff, but all springing from the same root.

The collaborative process began with a week of playing around with musician Nick Norton Smith in Dartington as part of a Fuel Theatre residency. Then I performed ten minutes of material on my own at a scratch night at the Nightingale Theatre in December last year. By that stage I had the other actor on board, the directors, a producer and a lighting designer, plus a commission to perform the work from Ovalhouse, but no funding yet to make it.

We had a week in the summer with the crew and cast more or less as they now exist work-shopping very early ideas. Jules Munns was instrumental at the beginning in helping me out with scientific research around space facts. The Apollo missions are a loved subject for him. Then in September we finally began full time rehearsals.

At this point, the two directors were like my assistant directors, then as we approached the production week they took the reins much more. I was writing every night after rehearsals. Lots of late nights!! And I worked very closely with director Paul Hodson who acted as my dramaturg / script nudger. He has been bloody brilliant. Good at the judicious edit and a great lover of all the Joseph Campbell stuff, of which I am also a fan. The movement director Emma Roberts I trust implicitly. We have worked together on every project and understand each others’ methods of working intimately. She finds form for the thing I am thinking before I’ve even said it sometimes. We finish each others’ sentences.

Pulling it into shape as a script is something that is happening right up to performance, which I am very comfortable with, but makes others anxious, obviously!! I’d like it to be different, but it is the way it has always been, so I guess it isn’t going to change overnight.. Endings are the hardest bit to get right, I find.

TW: You perform in the show, as well as having created it. Do you create all your plays with a view to performing them yourself?
RB: So far, yes. I think that is largely a symptom of the writing happening via characters that all come from inside me. All of my writing comes through improvising in character really. Even the parts I have written for the other actor. Also there is a lot of structured improvisation and choreography in the shows; the form of the pieces is quite idiosyncratic, so I couldn’t really imagine how anyone else could perform them at first. How I could explain that to anyone else? This time around I have been learning how to write the show in such a way for another person to interpret it. Including movement sequences and the more abstract scores. It has been a real learning curve.

Also, performing is a great joy. After all that solitary writing, being able to share it with people live feels great. It is the whole point!

TW: Has the limited availability of good roles for women pushed you to create your own shows, or would you do that regardless?
RB: Not really, although I recognise there are many wonderful actresses out there who are frustrated at the lack of roles. When I started making original work, it was more out of a need to get a story out of my system than a need to be seen in an interesting role. That’s not really in my thoughts when I make work at all. I was driven by a feeling that this story wouldn’t exist unless I made it. I do think: what would be fun for the audience to see? What would be really uncomfortable / pleasurable etc to watch this character go through?, etc. I love creating work that sits really intimately inside the audience. I don’t think a lot of traditional plays do that.

TW: You appeared in the film ‘Matrix Revolutions’. How did that compare to live theatre work? Would you like to do more film work, or do you prefer the stage?
RB: Ha. Yes i did. I loved working on that film! It was a mind blowing experience. Vast. I was a tiny cog in a vast machine. Though I think theatre is my first love. Theatre feels like home base. I would love to do more film, but the opportunity never really had a chance to take root, as when I left Australia I was giving up acting. I wanted to take some time out and to reconsider what I wanted to do.

I have always loved working very closely with a small creative team on something we are all passionate and excited about, but it didn’t feel like much of my life was about that as a jobbing actor. It is hard to get that kind of intimacy on a huge set and you do tend to spend a lot of time auditioning for things you couldn’t care less about. Although having said that, the Wachowskis did a pretty good job of keeping it intimate, even at that level.

But I am very passionate about cinema, film language is a real influence on my theatre making. I am secretly a cinephile. These days, now I’ve got my play making life, so that itch is scratched, I can enjoy working as an actress now and again when there’s time.

TW: You trained and began your career in Australia. What made you decide to settle in the UK?
RB: I fell in love with an Englishman. I had a British passport. I wasn’t enjoying acting anymore and wanted a change. (In no particular order)

TW: Do you expect Moon Project to be staged again after its London run?
RB: The plan is to be touring it again more extensively around the UK and further afield in Autumn 2014.

TW: What’s next for you, and for Stillpoint?
RB: I’m developing this Moon Project idea into a screen play. It is the first piece that has started to make itself into a film in my imagination, so I want to roll with that. I’m heading to Australia in January to set up some work connections and spend some time with my beloved family. The piece is all about the struggle to find peace with the idea of home, really, so taking it home feels fitting. I’m also wanting to develop a project that involves live music with a musician. So that will probably be the next theatre-y thing.

Moon Project is on at Ovalhouse until 16 Nov. More info from the venue website here, and you can book tickets here.

LINKS: www.ovalhouse.com | stillpointtheatre.co.uk | twitter.com/stillpointuk